


Vipāka

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-14
Updated: 2006-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:22:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heat doesn't remember a time when he wasn't an Embryon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vipāka

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Blue Soaring

 

 

Heat doesn't remember a time when he wasn't an Embryon. Head doesn't remember a time when he didn't work with Serph, Argilla, Cielo, and Gale. Heat doesn't remember a time when he didn't live in the cold room next to Serph in the middle of their base.

Part of Heat wonders if this is strange. Part of Heat things he's asleep because he remembers sounds, faint pictures and even a smell. Things only he knows and can see.

They seem to happen more around Serph than any of the other Embryon members. Heat believes it's because Serph was the first. In the beginning, Serph had found him. Heat had been sleeping in a destroyed building, under rubble, unaffiliated but in what would become Embryon territory. Serph already had his orange mark, as if when he appeared, or woke up, or however it was people in the Junkyard were created, he was marked as the leader.

Heat remembered opening his eyes to seeing Serph standing over him, shadowed by crumbling rubble scorched with blast marks from guns, and smiling. He had offered a hand to Heat and said quietly, "I've got a better place to sleep than this." Heat had looked at the hand, with long pale fingers, and felt an intense moment of -- _fear_ \-- something curling in his stomach. Then the wave passed and Heat had clasped the cool hand with his own. "Follow me," Serph said then and Heat did.

That was how Embryon had started.

Argilla had been next. Heat never knew how much time had passed in the Junkyard before they had found her. It seemed like weeks but Serph later told him it was only three days. Serph had found her the same way he'd found Heat. They had been tracking a Vanguard that had crossed into the small four square block radius he and Serph had staked out as their own and suddenly, instead of following the Vanguard to the right, Serph had veered left.

"What are you doing?"

"There's someone over here. Someone we have to meet," Serph had said and Heat followed, as he always did.

Argilla was standing with her back to them, a block away, with her face raised up to the bleak, clouded sky. "Hello," she said, turning to face them. She kept her pink eyes trained on Serph with the experienced gaze of a sniper but her expression while seeing him was -- _love_ \-- strange. She recognized Serph the way Heat had.

"Hello. Would you like to come with us?"

Whatever else Serph might have been in battle, to his companions he was always polite.

Between Argilla and Cielo, the Embryon had acquired others. Inconsequential, mostly, but helpful in their constant struggle against the Vanguards for territory they both claimed. Heat never bothered to learn their names and their faces the way he did with the inner circle that Serph drew to him.

Cielo was the only one of the group that found Serph, not the other way around. He walked, unmarked and unharmed, right past the guards of their base with a smile and knocked on the door to the meeting room. At the time, he, Serph and Argilla had been planning a surprise attack on the Vanguards supply headquarters to cut off their munitions.

"Ignore it," Heat had advised. "It's probably someone needing your help picking their room. This is more important."

Serph shook his head once, sharply, and stood, making his way to the door and pushing the button for it to slide open. On the other side, Heat had his first look at Cielo. And his first look at a smile as Cielo ran his eyes over Serph. It was a -- _look of respect_ \-- strange expression and Heat was instinctively put on his guard, afraid the stranger might do something to hurt Serph. "Hello, brother," Cielo had said. "May I come in?"

Serph had nodded simply and moved out of the way and Cielo had become Embryon as quickly and easily as the rest had.

Gale had come last and different. He was the coldest of them all, cool and logical. He rationalized every action and looked for each possible outcome. Serph had found him near the Vanguard base, a few kilometers outside of Embryon territory. He had been searching through the rubble for something but, later, when Heat questioned about it, Gale had said he was simply looking. It was an investigation, not that he was looking for something in particular. Heat privately thought Gale had felt a compulsion to search even if he didn't know what he was searching for.

Heat could understand the power of compulsion. He could understand the power of Serph.

The group of them had approached Gale slowly, cautiously. He wasn't marked as a Vanguard but Heat had advised caution anyway. There was no telling what they might do to take out their main rivals for territory. Serph had clasped his shoulder and squeezed when Heat said that, studying him coolly and -- _sadly?_ \-- but he had done exactly what Heat had asked. That was one of the things Heat appreciated about the Embryon leader.

Gale had heard them all approach and broke off his search. He had eyed all of them, first Serph and last Serph, resting his eyes there. Without prompting, he had said, "I'll come with you." Serph had nodded but no one moved as Gale and Serph simply studied each other. There was a look of -- _recognition_? _disgust_? - assessment on Gale's face. "I believe with you I'll find what we need." Again, Serph gave his slow nod.

"It's this way," Heat said, nodding sharply back toward their base. The sooner the five of them got out of Vanguard territory, the better. A big group like this could be caught easily.

Five. There was something about that number. Something about the group. It was complete in a way Heat couldn't understand or comprehend until much later. Maybe it was hours, maybe it was days, and maybe it was years.

He would never understand the importance of Argilla, Cielo, Gale and Serph until the sixth appeared.

She was beautiful, Heat thought. Delicate and sweet and her song had stopped the devouring hunger for just a little while. She was different from the rest of the Junkyard. He was going to protect her this time.

_This time...?_

Heat dismissed it. It was just a stray thought. They had more important things to do right now.

_She looks like Serph._

 


End file.
